Mustafa Khattab – CARRY THE LIGHT Dawa to Muslims 1
AI: Summary ©
The importance of promoting Islam in media is discussed, including the use of the title Islam and the importance of setting up WhatsApp groups to encourage Muslims to pray. The speaker emphasizes the benefits of smoking, including breathing and eventually dying, and gives examples of the benefits of smoking, including breathing and eventually breaking into a house. The importance of being an example and being a father is also emphasized. The speaker gives advice on leadership, including being an example, having knowledge, leading by example, and being a father. The speaker also discusses the use of the Prophet's advice and gives advice on correcting people with sincerity and showing respect.
AI: Summary ©
Studies in English with honors and served as
the Fulbright interfaith scholar and an imam in
the United States for 3 years.
His PhD research focuses on the image of
Islam and Muslims in North in North America
and actually the American media.
He is the co translator of the whole
Quran into English and the author of a
book titled The Nation of Islam, and is
also a contributor to the encyclopedia of Muslim
American History. He'll be speaking on the topic
of Dawah amongst Muslims. Please welcome, Imam Mustafa
Fatab.
So
before I start my talk about doing dua
to Muslims,
I will remind you of the project we
started a few weeks ago, about 3 weeks
ago, about
printing and distributing
a pamphlet,
a brochure about the prophet
to all the homes, not only in Edmonton,
but the whole of Alberta.
A million pamphlets will be printed
and mailed to all the homes in Alberta.
So we need your assistance. So far we
have sponsorship for about 300,000
pamphlets,
and we still have about 700,000
more to go. So inshallah, if you would
like to make a contribution inshallah, you can
go to Arashayd or you can pay online.
Of course,
Dawah is an obligation on every
Muslim,
male and female.
And the prophet
says in the authentic hadith,
convey my message even in the form of
1 ayah and 1 hadith.
When ever we hear the word Dua, we
think about making Dua to non Muslims, but
also there's Dua to Muslims as well.
Of course, the purpose of making Dua to
non Muslims is to convey the message to
them. Our goal when we convey the message
of Islam to non Muslims is not to
convert them. This is not our job. And
this is what the prophet
taught in the Quran.
Your role is only to convey, not to
convert.
Say, oh, Muhammad, this is the truth
from your Lord. Let those who want to
believe, believe, and let those who don't want
to believe, not believe. It's up to them.
If they take shahada, and
at Tarasheed, we see an average of 3
to 4 people taking shahada every month, and
this is a good thing,
But at least if people don't take shahada
and they don't they don't come to the
fold of Islam, they have at least a
positive
attitude toward Islam
when we give them dua. So if someone
says something bad about Muslims in the media,
like Fox News,
and I've been doing my research for PhD
for about 5 years,
on Fox News. And 2 things I have
now that I didn't have back then when
I first started my study of Fox News,
Blood pressure and heart attacks.
Okay? So those who follow Fox News, they
know what I'm talking about. It's complete they
live in a different planet. They don't know
what they are talking about.
If you don't get people to have a
positive attitude toward Islam and Muslims, now at
least
we can get them to hate us less,
and this by itself is a success.
Dawah to Muslims comes in the form of
nazih,
advice, which is an which is an obligation
on every Muslim. As the prophet
says that one one of the six rights
of a Muslim and other Muslims is nasiya.
When they need your advice, you have to
furnish your advice.
The comes in the form of correcting a
wrong they do. If you see a brother
smoking stuff or drinking stuff they're not allowed
to do, now you give them You give
them so they stop it.
If you see them not doing something good,
something they are supposed to do, like salah,
for example, they don't pray. I don't like
to use because I'm too short.
If if they don't pray, you give them
nasiha to pray. So the nasiha is either
to stop doing something wrong, to quit, or
to do something good, like salah.
Or you try
to correct the wrong ideology that some Muslims
have. Some Muslims confuse Islam with the local
cultures they bring from home,
and this sometimes gives Islam a bad name.
Okay? So don't confuse the culture, your culture
from back home with Islam.
Those who work in the field of Dawah,
they know that doing Dawah to Muslims
is much more difficult than doing Dawah to
non Muslims. Why?
Because here you have some non Muslims, you
give them Dawah. This is what Allah says,
this is what the prophet says, the account
of Islam, the 5 pillars and all that
stuff. They don't have a problem with that.
They either take it or leave it. But
now, you come to give Dawah to a
Muslim, and they start arguing with you, debating
with you. And the worst thing you can
do in this life is to debate with,
someone who has two qualities,
ignorance and arrogance. And they got the worst
of the 2 worlds. Okay? They start confusing
culture. They start debating with you. And before
I give you the qualities for someone who
gives a dawah to Muslims, I'll give you
these two stories,
that happened in Egypt a long time ago.
I'm Egyptian, by the way. Like, half of
the speakers are Egyptian. This is something nice.
Doctor
Jamal, by the way, doctor Allah,
and Sayedal.
No. He is Somali.
Okay.
So this brother I used to work with
at one of the local,
TV channels in Egypt,
and this guy, Subhanallah, he had
gold from head to toe, necklaces
and rings and everything, gold everywhere.
If you wanna get rich, you have to
kidnap this guy
and ask for a $1,000,000 ransom. Believe me,
you'll get rich in 5 minutes. I still
have his card, by the way, if you
wanna kidnap him. Okay?
So this guy, I said, now how about
that? Brother, why do you wear
gold? He said, I'm gonna tell you the,
secret.
I said, don't you know that the prophet
said in the Hadith and the Quran, this
is saying, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know the
Hadith. Okay?
I said, why do you wear gold? Convince
me. He said,
first of all,
this gold, like this necklace, for example, it's
so precious to me because
my mother gave it to me.
What else? He said, this necklace, for example,
it has something that I love so much.
It's a verse from the Quran that says,
It says
that it has this statement from the Quran
that I love so much. It says,
work for this dunya as if you are
going to live forever, and work for Aqirah
as if you are going to die tomorrow.
I said,
lie.
What is this way? It's not even in
the Quran. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hadith.
Hadith.
Hadith. What are you talking about?
What is this, man?
It says, why is saying from some of
the Sahaba? It's not Quran. It's not hadith.
He said, I'll tell you the truth. Okay.
I'll tell you the truth.
When I don't wear gold,
I can't
breathe. I said, what?
This is even worse than the first one.
What does what does gold have to do
with breathing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This guy is
nuts. Okay?
So this is one. Then another time, I
was giving a lecture in, South Carolina
2, 3 years ago,
and I was talking about people who harm
themselves and about smoking and all that stuff,
and this brother came to me and he
said, you know what? I'm a heavy smoker
and I like smoking, I'll never quit smoking.
And, and just, for your knowledge, 15% of
doctors smoke.
So I said, well, I'm not gonna smoke
because 15% of doctors,
smoke.
And I'm not gonna convert to,
to Hinduism because, a 1000000000 people are are
Hindus. Okay?
What does this have to do with anything?
Okay. He said, I'm gonna tell you something
that will change your attitude about those who
smoke. I said, well, tell me. He said,
I'm gonna tell you the benefits of smoking.
I said, okay. This is new to me.
I never knew that smoking has some benefits.
But I said, okay. I'll tell you something
first. I will tell you that the benefits
that smoking has before you tell me the
benefits of smoking. Number 1,
if you smoke,
you will never suffer from old age illnesses.
Why? Because you die young.
This is a benefit. It's a good one.
And number 2,
burglars will never break into your house at
night. Why? Because you're staying up all night
coughing.
So they think you're awake, they will never
break into your house from the kitchen.
Number 3,
dogs will never attack you when you walk
in the street. Why? Because you age old
young and you'll always have a cane in
your hand,
so when dogs see a cane see a
can a cane in your hand, they will
never attack you. These are the benefits of
smoking that I know of. Now get out
of here.
So
it's hard to argue with someone who doesn't
have the knowledge
and someone who is arrogant. They make your
life miserable.
If you find someone like this and they
come to argue with you with you and
say nonsense,
tell him,
thank you. I'm busy. I have to. Because
you're not going anywhere with them. If you
argue with someone who has humility,
someone who has knowledge, there will never be
argument.
Okay? They would never they would never argue
with you if they have the knowledge.
Now what are the qualities you have to
have before you give naseeha or advice to
fellow Muslims?
The criteria is given in the Quran in
in several places.
Allah
says in the Quran,
with wisdom
and good preaching. Indeed, Allah knows who are
truly guided and those who are misguided.
In another verse, in Surat Yusuf, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala says,
Say, O Muhammad, this is my way. I
call to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
with, and
means knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge and wisdom.
And praise be to Allah, I'm not one
of those who are misguided and those who
commit
shirk.
Before you get down, Allah, you have to
have these qualities. Number 1, I'm gonna talk
about 3 of them today, then
maybe some other time we can talk inshallah
next year, if I'm still here.
The first one is you have to be
afootwa, you have to be example yourself. How
come you give nasehah to people and you
don't practice what you preach?
This is why most of the kids, they
never listen to their parents because here you
have a father who is smoking weed
and telling his son, don't smoke. Don't be
an idiot. Smoking is not good for you.
And you have a cigarette in your hand.
What is this, man? You're nuts.
Then you shoot yourself in the foot. So
then you look hypocritical. You say something, you
do something else. And now you have this,
mother who's telling her daughter, don't backbite people.
It's too bad. And she's talking about her
neighbors all the time. You see, this lady
is fat. This lady is tall. This lady
is skinny. This
she can't cook. What What is this?
You do something and you something else. They
will never listen to you. Anyhow, this brother
telling his Muslim brother, okay, you have to
pray on time.
And the soccer doesn't even pray.
Okay?
You have to be an example. You have
to lead by example. Okay? So people will
follow you.
You have to have knowledge.
You have to have knowledge.
You have to have this knowledge to give
dawah to people. And I remember a long
time ago, this brother, he told me a
story that happened in one of the, countries
in Southeast Asia. They said they didn't have
a qualified imam, so they just got a
guy off the street to read the salah
to give them talks.
I'm not gonna mention the name of the
country because they will shoot me in the
head.
But in any case, this brother, he told
me that this fake imam,
he was a volunteer imam. He didn't have
the knowledge.
He was,
reading for them from a book that talks
about the
requirements for
It says in the book, and this is
true in Philip,
It is recommended to have for.
So he started to interpret what the book
says. He didn't have the knowledge. He said,
it is recommended
that you give udul to the goat or
the sheep before you kill it.
I know it's very confusing when you read
it.
It is recommended to have udul before you
make udul. Yeah.
Yeah. Common sense.
So he said, you have to make wudu
for the good before you kill it. Wash
the ears,
the nose, the feet,
everything.
So this poor guy, he came from the
back, and he was terrified and said, Sheikh,
may Allah forgive me. I'm ignorant. I don't
know. What about the Haqqaiyah that I killed
last year? Impure. I didn't I was ignorant.
I didn't know. Will that be accepted? He
said, no. It's nejazah.
Can you pray with all the wudu? He
said, no. He said, can you give with
all the wudu?
Same thing.
So making that all without knowledge is is
not something that will benefit you. You have
to have the knowledge
of yourself,
of the people, and the knowledge of Islam,
so you can make down the right way.
So you have to lead by example.
And number 2, you have to have knowledge.
Otherwise, you will give Islam a bad name,
and you will harm Islam
without even knowing.
The last one that I want to focus
on in in my last, what, 10 minutes,
is hikmah.
And hikmah is a is a huge thing.
Hikmah is wisdom.
And Hikma is not for everyone.
It's a privilege, not a right. And this
is what Allah says in the Quran.
Allah
gives hikmah, wisdom,
only to those whom he wants. It's not
for everyone.
Okay?
It is not for everyone. It's only for
those who want to get Hikmah. How do
I get Hikmah?
Well,
you get Hikmah by following the sunnah of
the prophet
Do you know that the hik the sunnah
of the prophet
is always always called Hikmah in the
Quran. And remember what is recited in your
homes, the verse is talking to the family
of the Prophet
Both the the book, which is the Quran
and the hikmah, the wisdom, and that is
the sunnah of the prophet.
So Allah
says in the Quran that Allah has done
a great favor to the Sahaba and to
Muslims
by sending them someone who teaches
them the book, which is the Quran and
hikmah, that is the sunnah. So if you
follow the prophet
you try to follow the sunnah, you will
get hikmah.
Just by reading the hadith and the sunnah
of the prophet you will get hikmah. So
what is hikmah?
Hikmah is to say the right thing
at the right time to the right people
in the right way. This is hikma.
Simple and clean. Okay? To say the right
thing
at the right time to the right people
in the right way.
So for example,
speaking of Yani
saying, we're giving Nasirah the right time. You
don't go and wake up someone at 3
in the morning to talk to them about
cigarettes.
They will just punch you in the face,
and they will go back to sleep.
You have to choose your time.
And this is what the prophet did in
this authentic hadith in Bukhary by Abdullah ibn
Musul. He said that the prophet would
pick the time carefully to give us naseeh
or to give us daww. He didn't talk
to them all the time, like, day and
night. No. He chose the time carefully.
When they are tired, he didn't talk to
them. When they're hungry, he didn't talk to
them. He waited for the right time, and
he didn't talk every day, like, to the
he didn't give hupas every day. No. When
when it was a right time, he spoke.
So choosing the right time
and choosing the right place. The prophet
if you read in the Hadith, he never
corrected anyone in public.
He chose the right place. In the Hadith,
it says that the prophet whenever someone did
something wrong and he knew their names
he knew their names, he wouldn't give a
fuck up and say, why did this guy
do so and so? He never did it.
He would say, why would some people
say this or do this? And he would
correct them in a very general way so
he doesn't offend them. He never mentioned their
names. Or
the prophet
will take the person to the side and
correct them
secretly
so no one would would know about the
the prophet
will correct them. How do we know that
the prophet
will correct them?
After the prophet,
this Sahaba will mention the hadith
and tell us this secret. Otherwise, we wouldn't
have known about it. I'm gonna give you
one quick hadith
story.
This person, one of the Sahaba, his name
was Khawwati ibn Jubayel Ansari, and the Hadith
is authentic. It's in Sahih Tabalani.
He said, I was a young man. He
was a youth,
17, 18 years old,
and he just accepted Islam. He was a
new Muslim in Medina.
So he said, I went out with the
prophet
to a camp,
and in the break, I went outside to,
you know, see the place. They were traveling
outside of Medina.
So he said,
when I was passing there, I saw a
few women sitting to the side and chit
chatting. There were probably non Muslim ladies.
So he said, I I ran back to
my tent, I put on my nicest clothes,
I was shot.
I came back, and I sat with the
ladies, and we started to cry, joke, and
chitchat, and hey hey, and all that stuff.
And all of a sudden, they came the
prophet
came, and he saw him sitting with the
ladies.
And he said, when I saw the prophet
I I was shocked. I didn't know what
to say. The prophet
was so honorable
and so respected and so charismatic, I was
ashamed.
I didn't know what to say. Then the
prophet came to
me and said,
what are you doing with the ladies?
He said, well, I didn't know what to
say. Then he said that the prophet
you know, smiled to me, and I told
him, oh, Prophet of Allah,
I have a rebellious
camel.
He drives away all the time.
And these ladies,
may Allah
give them their word. They're making a rope
for me, so Allah make him. And he
said, bye, Allah. Bye, Allah. When I said
this to the prophet, he smiled, and, bye
Allah,
I was a liar. And the prophet
knew I was lying to him, but he
smiled and he left. He didn't say anything.
Then we returned to Madinah,
and I was walking in the street one
day, and I heard the prophet was coming
behind me. He was walking
because people started to say, Assalamu Alaikum,
and all that. So I knew he was
coming, he was after me.
So I started to to walk fast, so
the prophet walked faster than me, he started
to jog, and he caught up with me,
and he said, Yeah, Abdullah,
what happened to your wild camp?
I said, I
didn't know what to tell him. Then he
smiled and he left.
Then he said, a couple of days later,
I was walking and I saw him I
took a turn and I saw him walking
in front of me. I started to slow
down so I don't catch up with him.
He's gonna ask me about the camel.
The prophet
for some reason, he knew I was coming
behind him, so he stopped and he said,
come here. Come here.
What happened to your wild camp?
He said,
well, I didn't know what to tell him.
Then the prophet smiled
and left.
Then he said, another day,
I was in the masjid praying sunnah, Bahayatul
Masjid. Then the prophet
came and he prayed Bahayatul Masjid next to
me, and he sat down
and knew he was coming for me.
So, I made my salah very long. I
decided the longest Surah in the book, so
he would get bored and leave. So the
Prophet
came close to me and he said,
I got all day, and I'm waiting for
you. So he said, when he was finishing
the salah, he said, Wallahi, I will give
a Prophet
an answer to put his heart at ease
so he will leave me alone.
So he finished, he made salaam alaykum
Rasool Allah and everything.
Then the Prophet
asked him the, customary question, salaam alaykum rabbullah,
what happened to your wild camel? Is it
still running away? He said, by Allah, you
Rasool Allah, the good news is I have
some good news for you. Good news.
My camel has accepted Islam and is not
running away anymore.
So
in this hadith, the Sahih al Tabari, it's
an authentic hadith. It says that the prophet
smiled and he made dua for him. That
Allah gave him balaka and bless him, then
he left that there. Imagine if the prophet
took him and humiliated him and tarred and
feathered him in front of other people, he
would run away from Islam.
But the prophet
had a gentle heart and he was nice
to people. When you make down to people,
the people are not looking for a butcher,
They are looking for a doctor,
someone to take care of him, someone to
be nice to them.
People need
a sincere advice, and they give a sincere
naseeh, so they will come back to Islam.
If they start calling them naymulay, they will
never listen to you. They will never listen
to you.
And one of the techniques
of the hikmah that the prophet
used to make naseehah to people,
before he will correct someone, and this is
an excellent technique, he would say something good
about them first, open their hearts, then inject
the naseehah and leave it there.
So in this authentic hadith in Bukhar,
the prophet
knew
that Abdullah ibn Umar was not praying,
Priyam at night.
He didn't pray at night. He just prayed
the 5 salawat, he went to bed, he
slept the whole night, and he didn't pray
at night. So the prophet
said, So
in this hadith,
prophet knew that Abdullah didn't pray at night.
So the prophet said,
Abdullah ibn Ummah is an excellent man. I
wish he can pray
a few rakats at night. He said he's
a great man first, then he said, I
wish he can do this to be an
excellent, to be bare.
So it says that Salim, the narrator of
the hadith says, wallahi, after this hadith, after
raktullah heard what the prophet
said, he used to sleep very little at
night, used to stand the whole night in
salah because the prophet said something positive about
him first,
then he corrected him. Now imagine if I
go to the tashweed harakat that I do
at the Rashid, and I see this brother,
he comes this is his part first time
to the masjid. He's 60 years old. He
started to read all that there's weed is
messed up. Everything is in the basement.
So I tell him,
what is wrong with you? You're 60 years
old. You can't read. Abi, get out of
here.
Like, what is wrong with you? If you
criticize them and you don't show them respect,
they will never come back. But what I
do, this is one of my techniques I
learned from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
I'd say, ma'am,
you you got a beautiful voice and the
pronunciation,
masha'Allah, excellent, like, Abdulbasib,
nicha'aww.
If only you just fix the rules of
Tajweed here and there. There are a few.
There are not many. He can't he can't
even pronounce a single correct Tajweed ruling. But
I tell him, Alhamdulillah, everything is good. There
are just a few things here and there
we'll fix, and you'll be excellent, inshaAllah. You
will be Akkari.
So people show up every day and, they
improve.
So Hikma is choosing the right time, the
right place, and speaking to in the in
the right way.
And as I said, if you correct people
with sincerity,
you don't do this so people will call
you a good man, you say it to
get the reward from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
and you hope to correct this brother and
sister in the right way.
And if you speak to people with respect
and in the right way and in the
right manner, you show respect to them with
sincerity,
believe me, they will change. I'm gonna conclude
with this story.
We got 2 more minutes to go.
I'm sure most of you never heard of
this man, Al Qanabi. And this is one
of my favorite stories, I said it at
the Rajid several times. Al Qanabi is one
of the most famous people in Islam that
you probably never heard of. He's very famous,
but to a certain people, but most of
us never heard of him.
Al Qanabi was a youth. Okay? He was
20 years old, 21 years old, and he
was a drunkard.
Okay? He used to drink. He was a
bad boy. Okay?
So he used to sit in front of
his house and drink alcohol.
And back then, they used to have a
special clothes for the bad people, the bad
boys. If you see the guy with the
uniform, you know he is a bad guy.
So he sat in front of his house
waiting for his friends to come and drink
with him,
and
he had the bottle of wine in one
hand, then he had the knife in the
other hand.
So what happened? He saw a man on
a donkey,
and hundreds of people are following this man.
Okay?
So he said and people are pulling the
donkey. They are almost carrying the donkey with
a shield on top of the donkey.
He said, what? What's wrong with these people?
Are they giant?
They're fooling a man with a donkey. Okay.
If it's a famous man, he should have
a horse,
Rolls Royce,
car, Toyota, anything, but not a donkey, and
donkey was not a good thing back then.
So I said, what's wrong with these people?
I'm gonna go check them out. Then he
went close to the people and he said,
who is this guy?
You are following, you people?
They said, this is Shoaib ad Hajjaz.
I said, okay. What does he sell? Who
is this guy?
They said he is the most knowledgeable
scholar of Hadith.
Shoaib Adan Hajjaz was very famous in